Effect of Bakuchi on
skin:
The oil has an irritant effect on the skin and
mucus membrane. Its action on the undifferentiated
protoplasm such as paramecium is quite marked.
It has a powerful effect against the skin streptococci.
On the voluntary muscle, the essential oil in
high dilution has a distinct stimulant action.
Saturated solutions of the oil injected intravenously
have no effect on blood pressure. The essential
oil, however, varies enormously in its effects
on different persons. With the majority (95%)
it causes only redness of the leucodermic patches,
but in rest 5% cases there is extreme sensitivity
to the oil, so much so that the blistering may
be produced. The oil being an essential oil
permeates through the epidermis to the prickle
cells of the lymphatic and so it finds the way
to sub capillaries and stimulates the cells
situated there. The advantage of this oil over
the skin irritants is that it does not produce
desquamation or any changes of keratolytic nature
resulting in loss of pigment of the epidermis.
Bakuchi has action on both Roget's cells and
melanoblastic cells of the skin.